Today was both a really good day and also somewhat of a slow day. The good thing about the day was that we hardly had anything to do at the hospital. However, the bad thing about that meant that we were standing around for most of the day. In the morning, Madison and I shadowed how to remove staples from a dog. We learned that it is actually quite simple and that you just need a small little tool and it could take less than five minutes. After this, we shadowed the cardiology department and learned how to read an echo and how to hook up a patient to the echo. In order for a patient to be properly hooked up to ECHO, they have to have three monitors placed on each of their paws, and they have to lie down on a special board that has two holes.
The most exciting and saddest part of the day was when a fox came into the ER in the afternoon around 2 pm. The owners that brought him in had rescued him from the breeders who were neglecting him because he did not have a true black stripe down the middle of his back like the breeders wanted. We learned that he is a 14-year-old fox who has been with them for about 11 of those years. The owner showed us pictures of the fox right when he got them and it didn’t even look like the same fox! Sadly, the fox was in poor condition as it looked like he had an abscess that had ruptured on his side and had created a wound that appeared to look like a puncture wound. Therefore, it was decided that the fur around his wound had to be shaved. This did not come without trouble, though, because it is a known fact that foxes have very thin and delicate skin (like a bunny rabbit) and that even if you nick them a tiny bit when you are shaving them, it can lead to a huge gash in the skin. Luckily this did not happen and he didn’t have to worry about that happening to him! At the end of the day, it was decided that he was septic, and he was placed in the ICU for monitoring through the night until the next morning when the owner would return again to assess the condition of the fox with Dr. Nunez. Hopefully, he will feel much better soon!